Making a Hash of Food Waste

Hash may typically be a mishmash of food, but these ingredients were made to go together. This is a lovely no-fuss meal that almost cooks itself. Once the slicing and dicing has been finished you simply sit back and watch the flavours mould in the pan, with most of the flavouring coming from the raw…

Brussels sprouts have enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance in the modern kitchen. Once the feared preserve of Christmas Day lunch, the dexterous green has reappeared as a national favourite alongside cruciferous counterparts such as broccoli and kale. For most people the texture of sprouts is the off-putting part, so shredding and then hashing them up into a…

Pytt i Panna, Swedish for “small pieces in pan”, is one of the ultimate fridge cleaners. Often abbreviated to hänt i veckan (“happened this past week”), the dish has become synonymous with leftovers across Scandinavia, where pyttipanne (Norway) and pyttipannu (Finland) are household dishes. Like most hash recipes there are countless versions of it, but the basic principle…

If hash is the mishmash pot of the old English colonies, Picadillo is its equivalent across the old Spanish colonies. Adapted to Giniling and Arroz a la Cubana in certain Latin American countries, the dish is a jumble of many everyday items used in Spanish and Latin American kitchens. Like hash, the name comes from…

Biksemad is a portmanteau of Bikse (to throw together) and Mad (food) which is a homely Danish dish once popular amongst the merchant sailors when they came off night watch. Like British hash potatoes and leftover veg forms the basis of the dish, but in true Danish fashion pork is the staple, perfect for cleaning…

You can’t argue with the fundamental ingredients of a full English breakfast, but you can get creative with them. This recipe is a lovely, simple way of putting a spin on the British classic. Not only does it taste great and take care of a bunch of leftovers in the fridge, it also really looks…

Leftover rice bake is by far the most versatile dish on this blog, and it is a real cupboard cleaner. Take the basic ingredients – rice, sauce and a crispy topping – and sculpt your own dish around whatever leftovers you have to hand. You are left with a wonderful one-pot dish that transforms a…

Hiyashi Rice, or Hayashi Raisu, is a Japanese-style Hashed Beef. Along with Kerei Raisu (curry rice) it is a staple in Japanese households, where families use instant roux blocks to create a thick tomato-based sauce that can blanket a plethora of leftovers. It is thought that Hayashi derives from the English ‘hashed beef’, and although the dishes…

There’s nothing more pleasurable than eating food cocooned in its own vessel. Stuffed Pepper Hash is a great dish to serve on its own or as an accompaniment to a main meal using up leftover bits and bats from the fridge. It may look complex, but this is one of the easiest dishes to cook…

Potato and spinach hash is a lovely fresh dish to cook if you’re not in the mood for a stodgy meal. All of the core ingredients are raw and fresh and there’s little need to overly spice or flavour. Take fresh veg, fresh herbs and hash them together with two hollow holes for your eggs….

This is a lovely, creamy hash that clears out leftovers from breakfast to dinner. It’s a simple, quick, no-nonsense hash that borrows a lot of taste from the horseradish and Leek combination with lots of chunky meat to complinent. INGREDIENTS From the fridge: Sausages, leeks and a white cheese. From the cupboard: Potatoes and horseradish…

Corned beef hash is the classic hash dish both in spirit and conception. The ‘throw together’ spirit is one that has its origins in leaner times when people extended dishes and made the most of what they had. The recipe was popular on the US railroad lines and on chuck wagons at the beginning of…